


A Crown of Broken Bone

by something_safe



Series: Hellish Instruments [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Biting, Desk Sex, Eating, Explicit Sexual Content, Furniture competitions, Hannibal being a princess, Hannibal being kinda y'know Hannibal, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-TWOTL, Ridiculous fantasy endings, Running away to Europe, a dog is not furniture will, cannibalism (weirdly), floral prose, impractical blow jobs, some dark imagery, some gore, will being will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:10:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5233586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_safe/pseuds/something_safe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is coming to terms with the fact that he's fallen for the devil. </p><p>OR</p><p>Hannibal and Will have a disagreement about interior decorating when they get their first house together. It all boils down to taste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crown of Broken Bone

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my lovely friend Kalli (kannibaleninderlieber on tumblr). Hope you love it bb.
> 
> You can find my Hannibal/Will tumblr at folieamoue.tumblr.com.
> 
> First time fandom caller, long time listener.

Will Graham has undergone changes. Most of them are admittedly minor, and physical: a slight softening both on his face and through his middle from one too many good meals; scars, knotted with home-made stitches; longer hair to hide them. The biggest, though, is mental. He’s moved through encephalitis-fevered, dissociative, vengeful, lustful, brutal, broken, wistful, all of them sweeping over him like the tips of feathers from softly beaten wings, unheard flight on snowy nights.

Now, though, he sees. His mind has cleared and thawed, and with the acceptance of his true nature, he has found something that hovers on the border of contentment and resignation.

He nurses a drink, staring into the fire, and allows himself a sigh. Attention shifts to him like sunlight leaking through cracks in wooden doors, and he lifts his gaze to meet maroon and sleep soft eyes. Hannibal favours him with a smile, baring his teeth. His wolf in sheep’s clothing; his savage love.

“Will?” he says, barely audible. He needn’t have said it at all, that smile is question enough. _Are you all right? Do you need me? Is it dark in there again?_

“Just thinking.” Will sips his bourbon and lets it sit on his tongue, the glass under his nose for a moment, fired oak and heather. Then he swallows. “If we’re staying here, we should buy some more furniture.”

Here is a secluded, modern house, in the freezing North of Finland. It’s a half hour hike from a lake, across a stretch of forest and field, hemmed in by hills and trees, and there’s a village close by. The house itself is enough like Will’s Wolf Trap gable to feel familiar, but ostentatious enough to bridle Hannibal’s taste for exclusivity. They don’t have a couch just yet, only a bed and a couple of sets of drawers. Their closest neighbour is a twenty minute drive. Even though he knows Hannibal misses the social gatherings that not being- well, on the run- afforded him, Will thinks it’s as close to heaven as two damned things could ever be.

For a moment, the image is so clear to him, two figures, blackened by smoke and flame, twisted lips and exposed fangs. Horned and winged angels of instinct, their reptilian tails knotted and hands bound together with red satin. He gazes into the fire, and the fire calls him home.

“What sort of thing were you thinking?” Hannibal asks, and his low voice is musical with amusement. It takes Will a moment to realise he’s not asking about his infernal daydreams but the furniture. When it comes to Will, he knows Hannibal finds even the banal a challenge.

“Something rustic I suppose, to go with the house. Some sheepskin rugs, maybe. A couple more chairs. We could go to a market.”

It’s automatic, the tilt to Hannibal’s mouth, not a smile but something nicer than a snarl.

“Sheepskin? Why don’t we just go to Ikea.”

“What do you have against Ikea?” Will asks, and Hannibal doesn’t smirk; holds his gaze when Will meets his eyes. “I love Ikea.”

“Then you can have your very own Ikea bed if you like,” Hannibal says, expression serious, the bow of his upper lip pursed. Will breaks and laughs, and the moue breaks too.

“All right, no sheepskin.”

“No Ikea.”

“No Ikea,” Will agrees. “We have to be careful, though. You can’t just go around buying chairs made of antlers and solid gold harpsichords, they’ll find us in minutes.”

“We are presumed dead,” Hannibal reminds him.

“Did you read that on Tattle Crime, because it sounds like horse shit.”

“Will,” Hannibal’s voice grows gently chastising at the swear. He puts down his tablet; reaches out to cup Will’s face with delicate hands, thumb brushing over his lower lip, “Tattle Crime is a beacon of well-founded information, I’ll have you know.”

Now Will is smiling, settling his glass on the marble of the hearth. There’s a tartan throw they’d found in the cupboard under the stairs spread over the carpet, and Will knows Hannibal itches to throw it on the log burner. He lets Hannibal engage him, knees angled toward him like the arrow on a compass reaching for North as he moves closer.

“You’re just saying that because of what Freddie wrote about us,” Will says.

“It was her best work, I believe,” Hannibal purrs, and their dynamic is shifting subtly as he draws his knees up and leans over Will just so, “‘A LOVE TO DIE FOR: Star crossed killers plunge together into death’s embrace.’”

“The ‘star crossed’ part was a little hammy.”

“We were star crossed, destined to only be united in death.” Hannibal sounds only too pleased by the idea. Will knows, objectively, that sometimes they both wonder if it only extends to the figurative. Even so, he can’t stifle his smirk of laughter as Hannibal presses a kiss to his lips. He tastes of wine and iron, and Will feels himself yield all too easily to the gentle urging of his tongue; the weight of him as he presses in close.

So far, death’s embrace is turning out pretty well for him.

*

Gradually, they settle on furniture. Hannibal brings home a vintage dining set and matching office desk, dark mahogany tables with matching chairs, ornately carved and sturdy. Will finds an armchair and sofa set in burgundy velvet that doesn’t assault Hannibal’s sense of taste, and a rug that distinctly does.

“That’s not coming in my house, I’m afraid,” Hannibal says coolly, regarding it with barely concealed ire. “It’s an abomination.”

“It’s a rug,” Will said, “it’s black. I don’t understand the problem.”

“It’s faux fur,” Hannibal’s lips pull back from his teeth, like he’d just been forced to say a dirty word. “It’s poor taste personified. Who even sold it to you?”

“You’re not eating a rug salesman. That is poor taste.” Will rolls his eyes. “C’mon. I like it. I want it.”

Hannibal doesn’t move from the doorway.

“Please?”

Will keeps the sound short, sweet. It astounds and amuses him no end that the world’s most prolific serial killer, his charming predator, his loving knife, cannot say no to him in the face of that one word. Something like gratitude stirs in his gut, for more than just a rug, as Hannibal sighs and stands back to let him in.

“Very well, we will have to get some dark sofa cushions to tie it in.”

*  
****

In retribution for the rug, Hannibal buys a harpsichord. It isn’t solid gold, but it might as well be.

“Do you not think we should be spreading our resources more thinly?” Will asks, watching as Hannibal’s fingers traverse the keys like spiders on uneven ground. “We won’t be able to take it with us if we have to leave, and we don’t have any way of making money.”

“Let me worry about that,” Hannibal says evenly, teasing a few sweet notes from the keys, “please, Will, you know I hate to discuss money. It’s crude.”

He’d hated discussing it even when they’d driven tersely toward Hannibal’s clifftop house, before the fall. He’d distributed his savings throughout several overseas accounts under various identities before his incarceration, and he’d reluctantly allowed Will to deposit his own into one of them. All this business of being on the run, it seemed, was just terribly inelegant.

Will brushes his fingers against the crisp cut of Hannibal’s waistcoat, leaning down to kiss his temple, lingering and adoring.

“All right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s forgotten.” Hannibal’s voice is gentle, and when he turns to regard Will, he seems moved as he always is by his affection, like he’s never believed it could be without agenda before now. Maybe Will can empathise with that a little too well.

“Want me to cook dinner?” Will offers. Hannibal laughs.

“Certainly not, the kitchen is my domain, we agreed.”

“Probably wise. I can only make omelettes.”

Hannibal doesn’t agree- it would be impolite, after all- but he does give Will a look that suggests that even his omelettes are sub par.

*

Will sits on the harpsichord thing for a while, debating his next move. In the end, he leaves the rest of the furniture to Hannibal, and brings home a dog. She’s a wolf hound, huge and ungainly and scruffy with wiry grey fur, exactly the kind of dog Hannibal would be loathed to share space with. Will hasn’t gone out of his way to aggravate him, not consciously, at least,  but he can't help but wonder just how far Hannibal’s patience will hold with him. Despite the thousands of things Will refuses to do to placate Hannibal, like being early for dinner, or shaving off his fucking beard, Hannibal almost constantly seems amused at his recalcitrance. Even so, he wonders if this will  be the thing that breaks the dam.

The sign at the shelter had said _Olen ujo! :(_ and Will had been sold immediately, whatever the cost. The hound’s sweet shyness and long eyelashes were worth the risk. The whole way back to the house, she had sat with her head on his thigh, spread out across the bench of the truck, her body shaking.

Hannibal doesn’t say much at first, coming out of the kitchen to greet him, suddenly too busy trying to figure out what he's seeing to speak.  He watches the dog move uncertainly around the living room, occasionally emitting soft whining sounds. Eventually, she settles on the black rug in front of the fire, and Hannibal takes a breath and gives Will a look that says everything.

“She’s not to come in the kitchen or the bedroom,” he adds, somewhat sternly. Will tucks his hands in his pockets and nods at the floor, trying to hide his smile.

That night, he hikes with her to the lake so they can walk along the frozen bank where he sometimes fishes. She lopes easily alongside him, reluctant to drift too far away, and as the sun sets in hues of soft lilac and grey, Will finds himself looking up at the sky to count the stars,  puffing fogged breaths from exertion. Everything had always seemed so complicated before, clouded with mysticism, a maze of possibilities and questions. He had been so afraid to see what Hannibal was, to see his point of view, that he had chased himself into a state of frenzy over his own moral inclinations. He had feared finally seeing Hannibal’s mask slip and knowing beyond all doubt not only what Hannibal was, but also why.

Now, with the knowledge of their fragile mortality, their fleeting existence, their futile folly, he sees what he is, too, and knows why he and Hannibal fit together like the empty spaces between constellations, each a universe in itself. They are vast and complex and ineffable. They are twisted and ugly and hungry. They belong to one another.

When he arrives home, he’s hit with the smell of cooking, something earthy and spiced. The dog- who Will is beginning to think of as Maera- immediately goes back to her rug after having cold paws wiped down. Will heads to the kitchen, to where Hannibal is performing, lean forearms bared and shirt collar unbuttoned. He’s cleaning up his presentation when Will slips cold hands into the pockets of his slacks, under his apron. It gives him pause, but he soon sets down his cloth and spoon; covers Will’s hands with his own through the fabric.

“Hungry?”

“Famished,” Will murmurs into the fine hair at the nape of Hannibal’s neck, “what’s for dinner?”

“Merimiespata,” Hannibal says, “a warming stew, with my own twist. Served with herbed bread and asparagus.”

“It smells amazing,” Will says, as Hannibal’s fingers find his in his pockets; soothe along his skin. “Cold out there.”

“I can smell it on you,” Hannibal agrees, “Sharp and grey. Dirty, maybe that's the dog actually.”

“You handled that well,” Will tells him, letting himself sound a touch surprised. He'd been stunned the whole evening. “You're not mad? Thought you'd think I'd been rude.”

“You have already given up a lot to follow me into the dark, Will, and you are a creature of habit. I did not expect you to have changed completely. On the contrary, I’m surprised you held out so long.”

Stunned, Will just stays close. A small, unsure part of him wonders if Hannibal appreciates the leverage of another life to hold over him for the next time Will hurts his feelings.

 He's snapped out of his thoughts as Hannibal hands him a bread basket. “Go to the dining table, I’ll bring it you.”

“I’ll pour the wine.”

Giving him a delicate nod, Hannibal holds on just long enough to twist and kiss him before he relinquishes his hold on Will’s hands.

Dinner is delicious, as always.

*

Hannibal counters Will’s acquisition with a taxidermy stag head. It’s sat pride of place above the mantelpiece, bright glass eyes fixed on Will as he comes in from walking Maera. It is exactly the sort of thing Will hates.

“What is that?” He asks Hannibal’s back where he’s reading on the sofa, looking warm and comfortable in a shirt and rollneck cardigan combination that Will thinks would look atrocious on anyone else.

“Hello to you too, Will. You’ll have to be more specific.” He doesn’t look up from his book.

“That stag head. It’s not exactly in good taste, is it, considering what we talked about in therapy.”

“Compromise is an art form, Will,” Hannibal reminds him gently, still not looking up, “you bought an ugly dog, I bought an ugly stag.”

“The dog isn’t dead, Hannibal.”

He gives Will a long look over the top of his reading glasses then, like he’s suddenly his psychiatrist again.

“Would you like to talk about what you find distasteful about the stag head that you do not about that revolting rug?”

“No, I don’t, I just want it off the wall. You always used to have dead things lurking about the place in Baltimore, it’s morbid.”

“Does it really bother you so much?” Hannibal does look up now, his dark eyes alight with some internal glow, making them reflect the crimson of the fire. “I wouldn’t expect that from a fisherman. You never hesitate to display any other kind of catch. Why this one?”

Fireflies and broken glass. Hannibal knows why. He wants recompense for the dog pee in his Oxfords, it seems. Will heaves a breath.

“We didn’t kill this one, it is not ours to display,” he starts, and then sighs; dispenses of the foreplay. “... It reminds me of Abigail.” It’s half-true. Hannibal knows this, sees the soft underbelly of Will’s mind exposed and sinks his teeth into it.

“Abigail, or Garrett Jacob Hobbs? Are you thinking of his victims, or hers? Does seeing this mounted stag head remind you of poor dead Elise Nichols?”

Will huffs a laugh.

“Nice try. It reminds me of my dreams, the stag I used to see, before I realised the stag was you.”

“It was?”

“You, me, Abigail. The acts themselves. You were the dark space beneath my bed, Hannibal, and I didn’t even know it. I saw it crawl out in the shape of you, those antlers on its brow, and I never made the connection until you choked me on it.”

“Perhaps the stag represents your own darkness, not that of others. Perhaps the space beneath your bed is filled only with the monsters of your desires.”

“You think I separated my evil from myself and imagine it a sentient entity? Hannibal,” Will feels the wry smile touching the corners of his mouth despite his efforts, “everytime we touch, I am one with my darkness. When we sleep together, it consumes us both, and makes us a black hole of blood and hunger. You are my darkness, one side of it, but I can’t rip it from myself even in my dreams.”

“The same way you can’t rip me from you,” Hannibal says wonderingly.

“I wouldn’t want to.”

The conversation is ugly, but Hannibal is smiling. His perfect bourgeois mouth spreads in the most alluring curve, the expression almost innocent. His childish delight at Will’s mental peril has always been a source of conflict- or maybe just mutual intrigue. There is a long stretch of silence, and Will considers that Hannibal thinks he has won.

“All right. I’ll put it in my study, would that be an agreeable compromise?”

Will nods and closes his eyes, and as the heat drains back out of his chest, he feels Hannibal’s arms encircle him.  

“Do you still see the stag, Will? Does my bone crowned shadow still lurk in your dreams?”

His thumb touches under Will’s chin, tilting it up. Forcing himself to meet his eyes, Will lets himself look; searches Hannibal’s face. Under his scrutiny, he opens up, pride and concern and love and a certain dark satisfaction all lurking behind bright glass eyes.

“Yes,” he whispers, “only now it’s more confusing.”

“You no longer fear me, but you feel echoes of fear.”

“You have already broken each of my greatest fears like glass. Fear is the unknown. I know you now, I see you. In my dreams you have a halo of sweetbreads, beams of blood red light, and I worship at the altar of your table like so many others before me, only I know what your First Testament redemption tastes like now.”

Hannibal’s eyes are like church windows, full of wonder and forgiving. He kisses him, and Will knows it’s one of the few times that Hannibal sees him too. They press close, taste each other, and it only takes the soft swipe of Hannibal’s teeth set against Will’s lower lip to coax a groan out of him; set him shivering and alive. It seems to stretch out, each tug of flesh, each warm taste of Hannibal’s adoration, until Will’s mind is full of stars again, of the space between constellations where they meet.

When Hannibal pulls away, one sharp incisor snags a cut in Will’s lower lip that makes him stifle a yelp. Blood smears his lower lip, the smallest drop, and Hannibal licks it up quickly with his tongue as he strokes his thumbs so-gently across Will’s cheeks. The closeness is soul-shatteringly intimate, so much more than Will ever thought he’d be able to handle. With Hannibal, it’s too easy to be reckless and open.

“I’ll move it now,” he promises, words buzzing against Will’s lips. He almost wants to protest, now that cloying want is crawling up his spine, pooling low in his belly, but Hannibal is already pulling away. Heading to the kitchen pantry to retrieve the footstep they have for the higher cupboards. He lifts the mounted stag down with little effort, carrying it down the hall to the study, Will trailing him with the step.

Once it’s hung, Hannibal stands back to appreciate his handiwork, tilting his head back a bit.

“I think my desk needed something, don’t you?” He asks, all debonair grace and gentle voice now.

“Sure.” Will shrugs. That gaze falls on him again, heavy like a wave, warm like a caress. Hannibal’s mask always dissipates in moments like this, when he regards Will with sheer hope and longing. His counterweight. His welcoming darkness. Will doesn’t know how he came to be the object of Hannibal’s multifaceted affections, but he knows he won’t slide from that spot anytime soon.

“Come here, Will.”

He goes. Doesn’t even hesitate. Those surgeons hands, swift and steady, ghost over his hips as Hannibal pulls him in, kicking the step away from the edge of his desk. He looks at Will’s mouth; leans in to brush his nose to his stubbled jaw, drawing in a deep breath of him.

“Do I smell of cold again?” Will asks, baring his throat as if for the set of Hannibal’s teeth.

“No, not so much tonight. You smell of pine, though, and smoke. Need, too.”

“Need, huh?” Hannibal smiles against his ear in an affirmation. “How’s that smell?”

“Delicious,” Hannibal says, and Will judders barely. “Like cloves and sweet wine.”

“And what do I need?” Will asks, lip curling at Hannibal’s predatory air, like he’s playing with his food. He’s not afraid of him, not anymore, but the whisper of Hannibal’s tongue against the lobe of his ear is still jolting enough to make him sigh.

“Me, I should think,” Hannibal rumbles.

“Is that so?”

“Isn’t it?”

Will lets himself smile; bites his own lower lip as he leans back to brush their noses in a tease, hands finding Hannibal’s firm shoulders. This is always fascinating to him too, the way Hannibal vies for Will’s desire, like he has to tease it out of him and hear it for himself to justify his own considerable hunger.

“I could be persuaded,” he relents. He sees Hannibal’s eyes flash at the challenge. As their lips touch again, a sweet slide of skin, Will is aware as ever that only soft flesh separates him from Hannibal’s teeth. He wonders if he would eat him raw if he could; if one day his ironclad control will break and he’ll rip Will’s tongue right out.

For now, he simply crowds him back against his desk and keeps kissing him, hands making paths of heat down his flanks and across his chest. Will arches into every sweeping touch until it’s hard to stay upright, and Hannibal must scent it on him or something because he soon hitches one palm under the back of his thigh and lowers him onto the desk with the other on his back. As he pins him to the desk with his weight, his palm stays hooked under his knee, gradually easing it up against his flank as he arches his hips flush to Will’s ass. The smile that snakes into their kiss at Will’s muffled groan sends a bolt of heat through him. Hannibal pins his hands with his own and rocks, the hard press of his cock snug against Will through their clothes.

“Hannibal-” he starts, helplessly. Shivers at the breath of laughter against his cheek; Hannibal’s tongue tracing the scar there.

“Still in need of persuasion, Will?” he asks demurely, punctuating it with another insistent nudge of his hips, steady, patient.

“I,” Will closes his eyes on Hannibal’s sanguine gaze, the serpentine flick of his tongue, “maybe a little more.”

That gets him a scrape of teeth, crackling sting, and a warning look as Hannibal pushes Will’s shirt and t-shirt up his body. Will keeps his hands still until he has to move them to help Hannibal push the clothes off, but then he puts them back; imagines the nails that hold him down growing from his wrists- no not nails, antlers.

Hannibal dips his head low, hair silvery fair in the dim light of the fire. He’s tasting Will’s skin, open mouthed, worshipping kisses down his throat, across his clavicles and shoulders. The further he moves his mouth, the further away his hips get and Will arches to chase the heat, letting out a soft noise of dismay when those crooked teeth cut into the meat of his shoulder.

“Ah!”

“Stay still,” Hannibal says indistinctly around his mouthful, and Will slumps back down against the desk, breaths coming harder. The pressure of teeth increases.

“Hannibal.”

“Just a taste,” he murmurs, “I would savour it for the rest of my days.”

Despite himself, Will feels his cock twitch at the words, want pulsing through him like a fever that can’t be broken. He shivers, then nods.

“Okay.” He breathes, then gasps.

Hannibal’s teeth sink in until they meet, tear, and Will chokes on a scream, hands coming up unbidden to grip at Hannibal’s hair. He clings, eyes stinging with tears, wincing as Hannibal pulls away; rips away the last slither of gristle keeping his mouthful attached to Will’s shoulder. His mouth is less bloody than Will had thought it would be, but the flesh between his teeth drips. He gives Will a heady once over, and then draws it into his mouth, rolls it on his tongue, and swallows.

“Now I’ll take you with me everywhere, even when the time comes for us to be apart,” he rumbles. He lifts his hands to Will’s shaking ones; pries them from his hair to kiss each knuckle with his red mouth.

Will is so close he can’t breathe, heat coiled in his belly, growing with every soft caress of Hannibal’s lips. His shoulder bleeds freely onto the desk below him, but he can’t care, the warm buzz of adrenaline coursing through him, feeding his need to be touched and react. When Hannibal has finished with his fingers, he kisses his palms; the tender inside of each wrist. Every barest glance of his lips sets flickers of electricity crawling in its wake. When he’s done, he presses Will’s wrists back to the surface of the desk gently, his hands a warm, reassuring weight.

“Are you still with me?”

“I’m always with you,” Will answers, soft and automatic. Smiling with red teeth, Hannibal starts on Will’s belt. “Am I going to get to touch you at some point, too-?”

“Perhaps,” his accent makes his words rounder and heavier. Will watches him draw his belt out with a swift tug and groans through his teeth at the way Hannibal hesitates before undoing his flies; waits for the dust to settle like he can’t stand to rush. His hands are poised, like he’s about to unfurl jewels from silk; a cut of meat from brown paper. He draws down the zipper and his angular hands grasp at the line of Will’s waistband; curl into the band of his boxers. Lifting his hips to help, Will watches his face. His breath comes out in a shudder as Hannibal undresses him, drinking him in with his eyes. Never has he known anyone to gaze upon him with such naked desire as Hannibal does. He feels coveted, hungered after. It doesn’t make him as uncomfortable as it should, not even with how embarrassingly hard he is, cock flushed dark and glossy with precome.

Gently, Hannibal trails his fingers up the curve of his cock, stopping to spread the wetness at the head with his thumb. He smiles at the way Will’s mouth drops open; stomach muscles rippling. All Will can feel or think is want. He needs Hannibal all over him, inside him, breathing him.

“Hannibal, please,” he utters, and those dark eyes come up to meet his.

“Will,” he says. Disbelieving, overwhelmed. Will can empathise.

Fingertips graze Will’s lips now, and he can’t keep himself from licking the pads; gasping when Hannibal smiles and feeds him two, gentle and obliging.

“ _Mmh_.”

“I forget that you like the taste of me, too,” he purrs. “Do you know how you look right now, spread out on this table? Like a banquet to be consumed. Caravaggio’s Dionisis. Meat and wine and fruit.”

Seeing Will’s eyes spark with curiosity, he smiles. “You taste like it too.”

Heat and pleasure surging through him at the praise, Will sucks more keenly on Hannibal’s fingers, then stalls when he pulls them away, licking his lips to placate himself of their absence. He has no idea when he became this creature of unslaked lust.

Aching, sweating, he watches Hannibal lower those wet fingers between his thighs. He hears himself make a bruised, wounded noise when the first slides inside. The weight of that gaze is on him again and Will basks in it, arching into the deep stroke, gasping when Hannibal adds in a second quickly, forcing them to the webbing of his knuckles.

“O-oh-” he can’t keep the sounds inside, even when Hannibal hushes him, pleading without words as Hannibal fucks him open with his fingers.  After a moment he withdraws them, leaving Will breathless and tense, but then he pushes back in with three, slicker now with the lube from his desk drawer. It starts to get easier, softer, and Will’s eyes roll back as Hannibal strokes further still. He shudders under the sensation; lets out a ragged sound like a sob when Hannibal finally pulls away.

“Hannibal- wait, before-” he heaves a breath, trying to find his words.

“Yes?” So patient. So still, like he’s barely affected. Will knows he is, though, feels it against his thigh and sees it lit behind Hannibal’s eyes like mirrors.

“Let me taste you first,” he begs. “Properly.”

Hannibal must like his attitude more now, because he smiles warmly when he drops his gaze. “All right. It’s only fair.”

Long fingers working on the buttons of his own shirt now, he draws it off his shoulders and discards it as he walks around the desk, leaving Will caught in the gaze of the mounted stag head. He listens intently as Hannibal comes to stand above him, unfastening his slacks before he pulls his cock free. Tipping his head up on the desk, Will watches him stroke his length and swallows the desire that pools on his tongue.

“Like this, no hands,” Hannibal tells him. Will nods, and in his core, his heart beats steady, slowing as Hannibal’s hot hands grip under his arms, hauling him further up the desk until he can cradle the crown of Will’s head in his palm, fingers curling into his hair and two more drawing soft lines down the column of his throat. “Are you ready, cunning boy?”

Will nods, eyes closed and head spinning, and the hand on his throat disappears for a moment as Hannibal guides the head of his cock against his lower lip. It settles under his chin again as he slides into his mouth, the weight of him so deeply satisfying that Will could scream; settles instead for a deep, content sigh and an arch of his hips.

Hannibal keeps pushing steadily in, until the crown of his cock is nudging down the extended line of Will’s throat and he’s almost there. He eases back, hands still cradling, and then rocks back in slickly. Will squeezes his eyes shut against the roar in his ears, where pressure steadily increases behind his eyes. Hannibal’s hand drifts from his throat to his chest, nails sinking into his skin, and Will feels five pinpricks of red lit pain, points to a perfect star. The tips of antlers, the snarl of breath as Hannibal grips his hair and holds him on his cock for a moment. Will doesn’t move, breath stopped but palms up and thighs lax. It’s only a few seconds, but it’s enough for the pain to get brighter; the antlers to break through.

Hannibal pulls out and lets Will choke on his air for a brief lull before he pushes back in, fucks into the warm sheath of Will’s throat a few times before extricating himself entirely. Carefully, he lifts Will’s head, letting him shuffle back down the desk, then leans to press an appraising kiss to his forehead. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Just the angle has left Will aching, but he can taste Hannibal sure enough, on the back of his tongue.

Disoriented, Will surfaces from the shadowed fog of his mind, sees in red light when he finally opens his eyes. Hannibal is between his thighs again, eyes dark and hungry. From this angle, as he leans over him, hands covering Will’s wrists, he grows horns. Naked, hard, sweat slick and gleaming, he’s as much a beast as Will always dreamed him. A halo of sweetbreads, and a crown of broken bone.

“Hannibal, please,” he breathes, and that’s all the invitation he needs to guide his cock to nudge against Will’s slick hole; press in steadily, all the way. Breathing fast together, they grow quiet, and then vocal again all at once. Will’s jaw drops against the stretch; the deep, complete weight. He turns his cheek into the heat of Hannibal’s breath so that he might hear the beating of his heart in his voice.

“I love the way you lift up to meet me,” Hannibal  whispers, gaze adoring as he bears his weight down on Will’s wrists; tilts his hips just that fraction higher, so that Will is seated against the angle of his hips without a millimetre of space between them. Hannibal’s cock is so deep it aches. “Like your instinct is to take everything I give you as far as you can.”

“I always have, haven’t I?” Will gasps. With his thighs splayed back against his hips, Hannibal’s arms either side of him, he feels caged in by him.

Slowly drawing his hips back until his cock head just teases at his opening again, Hannibal nods. He says, “Always,” and then slides back in.

“Ah-!”

The spider silk that had suspended this moment snaps. Will buckles as Hannibal fucks him, yielding under every shove of his hips. He’s thick and hot, veering back to watch himself disappear into the pink slick of Will’s body, brows drawn, lips very slightly parted. Every movement throws him into a vogue of emotion Will rarely sees, hair unkempt and teeth bared. He quickens his pace and Will keens, friction lighting a fire inside him, sweet and sharp. They move together effortlessly, endlessly, one undulating creature.

The air between them gets hotter, harder to breathe, and as Will looks up from between their tangled bodies he meets Hannibal’s insatiable gaze; leans up to lick the drying blood from his chin and gasps at Hannibal’s answering snarl. He drives into him faster, pure sensation, Will’s leaking cock trapped between their bodies. What had started as a game dissolves into something much more real; the blood drying on Hannibal’s desk, Will’s softly splayed hands, pale palms.

Hannibal leaning down to kiss each results in the tipping of his hips and a whimper from Will, and all at once Hannibal is grinding harder into the welcoming clench of his body without thought; surges rougher and faster when Will grabs at his hair again. He doesn’t even chastise him for moving; Will is tensing erratically around his cock, gasping soft, low moans out as it drives him closer.

“ _Hannibal_ ,” Will rasps it out, lungs compressed by his position, body held in place by Hannibal’s greater weight. He can feel his becoming, gathering low in his chest. As he tips his head back he sees those antlers adorning Hannibal’s silhouette again; feels them pierce him deeper still, shoving up from beneath him, through the cage of his chest and out of his belly. His heart beats faster, tangled amongst the branches of ivory, gored out of his chest.  He’s fallen in love with the devil, and the devil loves him back.

“It’s all right, Will,” he soothes, and Will believes him. Hannibal cups his face in his palms and kisses him, and it only takes another few rocks of his hips for Will to shake apart with the intimacy, long waves of carnal bliss that crash and roil and paint his belly with come. He feels the cut of Hannibal’s teeth in his lower lip when it hits him too; lets him draw another mouthful of blood as he rides his orgasm out within the clutch of Will’s body.

Slowly, the antlers retract. When Will opens his eyes, he sees the stag head mounted on the wall over them and sighs. Hannibal is slumped against him, more holding him than lying on him. Raising a hand to stroke through the fine strands of his hair, Will wonders about the prickle of discomfort against his neck.

“It needs stitches,” Hannibal tells him, soft and even, “and it will leave quite a scar.”

Will considers that, letting himself smile at the implications.

“What’s one more?”

“What indeed.” Hannibal kisses the scar on his cheek, and to the over-sensitive flesh, it feels cool and soft. “I’ll get my first aid kit.”

There’s a moment where Will debates stopping him, but then Hannibal draws carefully away, disappearing silently. Lying in the wake of his revelation, Will gazes at the stag head, still splayed and sticky on Hannibal’s desk. By the time he’s sat up, Hannibal is back, bearing a damp wash cloth and two blankets. He wraps one around Will once he’s clinically but carefully cleaned him of blood and semen, letting Will tuck the other around his narrow waist as he wipes over the bite on his shoulder with alcohol.

“It’s not as big as it felt,” he says easily. Will leans his cheek against the plain of his chest, unworried.

“Have to do it bigger next time I guess.”

“I guess.”

It takes a few minutes and some soft curses, but then Hannibal is tying off the stitches and ushering Will to bed. When he gets into their cool grey bedroom, he finds water and painkillers waiting; takes one with the other while Hannibal discards his blanket and climbs under the sheets. The temperature here doesn’t allow for the thin cottons Hannibal was accustomed to in warmer parts of Europe, but thankfully there’s still room for cashmere and velvet throws and feather duvets. Will finds himself smiling fondly as he listens to Hannibal settling on his side of the bed.

“I have to go settle the dog,” he says finally. Hannibal hums in agreement, more than happy to let Will go alone. Thankfully, that suits him too.

Once Maera has been let out and left food and water, Will leaves her on her rug by the dying fire and goes back upstairs. The house whistles with wind that finds its way in through the gaps in windows and roof spaces, but noises never much bothered him.

Climbing into bed, he scoots into Hannibal’s space, feeling a low trill of pleasure when Hannibal receives him warmly. The slot into one another’s negative spaces, Will’s head under Hannibal’s chin and his arm under Will’s neck, and silence filters into the gaps between their synchronised breath.

Taking a breath, Hannibal soothes a hand through Will’s curls. “It worries me sometimes, how much you trust me.”

Will considers that.

“No it doesn’t. It intrigues you.”

“I can be intrigued and worried, can’t I?”

“Worried you won’t have a head to poke around in anymore, more like.”

“There are always heads to poke around in, Will. You of all people should know that.”

“Well, even so.” He shifts to get more comfortable, his hand resting warm and steady on Hannibal’s stomach. “Don’t worry. I trust you, even when you don’t trust yourself.”

“How can you?”

“Your violence has a sort of pattern to it. You struggle to kill things you find interesting, or that ignite something in you that you might recognise as love. You struggled to kill Abigail. You’ve failed to kill me. You failed to kill Alana. You’re quite sentimental, for a psychopath. Bordering on romantic.”

Hannibal seems to turn that over in his mind for a long time, before he sighs; presses a kiss to the top of Will’s head.

“A romantic murderer.” He works the words, sounding almost disconcerted. “I think you really did change me like I changed you.”

“I think that’s what love does,” Will says, simply.

“Love.”

“Love, Hannibal.”

Hannibal is quiet then, thinking, perhaps troubled. Will starts to drift with the swirling patterns of his fingers on his shoulder, smiling when his mind tracks Hannibal’s fingers spelling out the letters of the word again.

 


End file.
